The present invention is concerned with apparatus for handling laminar articles in batches or arrays, especially articles which are standing on edge and leaning against one another, for example biscuits, delivered by one or a plurality of supply lines/chutes.
The apparatus is designed to separate the laminar articles arriving progressively from the supply lines into respective batches and to supply these batches to a receiving line, which transfers them to subsequent processing stages such as wrapping and boxing.
The present invention particularly also relates to devices for transferring biscuits, and confectionery products in general, from a first continuous belt supply conveyor/chute to a second transverse receiving line belt conveyor for further processing.
The present invention further relates to an apparatus and method for forming and transferring batches or arrays of laminar articles for subsequent packaging.
In the industrial manufacture and packaging of biscuits, the biscuits leave the cooking oven in a continuous flow, along a one or a plurality of supply lines/chutes. For some types of biscuit and packaging, traveling along the supply line, the biscuits are stood on edge and abutted against one another. It is then necessary to create from the delivery lines appropriate batches, batches or arrays either consisting of a predetermined number of biscuits or having, in total, a predetermined length and delivering these batches to a wrapping or boxing mechanism.
Apparatus, which is already available for the formation for such batches and their transfer to the receiving lines, are subject to considerable difficulties and inconveniences.
In fact the solutions which have been resorted to in such known apparatus in order to vary the number of supply lines, provide for temporary shutdowns or malfunctions of some of the lines, cope with variations in the thickness of biscuits in the course of production, or variation of capacity on the supply lines, have been very complex and unwieldy.
Typically one supply line or chute is able to feed only one receiving line for wrapping or boxing. In automatic packing machines, there is a speed mismatch, in that, the supply lines or chutes are unable to cope with the speed of the receiving line for wrapping or boxing. This leads to retardation in the speed at the wrapping or boxing end, and hence loss in efficiency of the energy-source and speed of packing.
Furthermore existing equipment, because of its construction and so as not to cause breakage of fragile articles such as biscuits, operates at low speed or takes up too much space.
In accordance with the prior art, biscuits are arranged in a mutual head-to-tail alignment on a continuous belt by, for example, controlling the speed of another continuous belt which is located upstream of the first and is supplied with biscuits from a production unit, the biscuits leaving the latter cooked, covered in chocolate, or otherwise prepared.
An object of the present invention is therefore to provide improved an apparatus for transferring laminar articles delivered standing on from supply lines batches to a receiving line for further processing.
Particularly, this invention relates in general to apparatus for handling for packaging biscuits, or other laminar objects by the use of a moving conveyor, which accepts biscuits, and transfers the biscuits to a second supply line.
It is usual when automatically feeding batches of biscuits to an intermittently operating in feed conveyor of a wrapping machine to deposit simultaneously a series of batches spaced apart at the same pitch as the pusher bars of the in feed conveyor.
A problem, however, arises if it is sought to utilize this procedure with a continuously moving in feed conveyor because, to enable time for depositing and clearance of the depositing means above the batches after depositing into the continuously moving in feed conveyor, particularly if a plurality of chutes or in feed supply lines or conveyors are used.
The chutes from which the batches or batches are metered need to be spaced apart at predetermined uniform pitch. Because of a large amount of intervening hardware of the supply lines and the delivering chute and the pusher bar mechanism, it has not been possible to transfer the individual batches on to a single receiving line, preferably transverse and common to the chutes of the supply lines/chutes for onward transmission to a wrapping, boxing or otherwise packaging workstation because in the prior art this leads to a very wide and cumbersome biscuit feeding machine. Furthermore, the width of such a machine makes it difficult for an operator to supervise the machine.
It is an object of the invention to overcome these difficulties by pitching a plurality of chutes close together and providing pusher bars with pitches corresponding to the width of the chutes and with synchronous movement so that batches of articles are deposited simultaneously from the supply lines/chute on to a receiving line at time-sequenced intervals to coincide with the arrival of pockets in the receiving line.
According to this invention there is provided apparatus for transferring batches in predetermined count or length of laminar articles standing on edge, from at least two supply lines/chutes synchronously to a delivery line of a handling station such as a packing station, said apparatus consisting of
[i] an operatively horizontal platform on which the laminar articles are displaced from the at least two supply lines/chutes;
[ii] a bank of pusher bars one for each supply line/chute positioned on the said platform for pushing a predetermined length of a plurality of said laminar articles in the form of a batch on the said platform;
[iii] displacement means for reciprocating the pusher bars synchronously on the said platform;
[iv] a striker plate, one for each supply/line chute extending operatively, vertically from the said platform;
[v] a hatch positioned adjacent to the each of said striker plates, the size and dimension of the said hatch being larger than the size of the batch of laminar articles;
[vi] a delivery line, having a plurality of pocket formations positioned operatively below the said hatch and adapted to receive in the said pockets, said batches of laminar articles falling through the said hatch for transfer to the handling station, the axis of the movement of the batches of laminar articles on the said delivery line being substantially perpendicular to the axes of movement of the laminar articles in the supply lines/chutes.
The apparatus of this invention also provides for devices for separating articles leaning against each other standing on edge supplied by a plurality of supply lines into a plurality of batches or batches and;transferring them to a receiving line placed transverse to and/or across and spanning all the supply chutes but at a level lower than the discharge end of the supply chutes by dropping the arrays or batches at predetermined pitch intervals on the receiving line in a manner herein described characterized in that in the changing of the level, typically by dropping of the arrays or batches or batches of these articles, typically biscuits the batches, arrays or batches are not significantly disturbed and the intermittent integrity of the batches, batches or arrays of the articles are maintained during the entire course of operation of separating the articles in batches, batches or arrays from the continuous stream of biscuits from the chute in the plurality of supply lines.
Pusher bars are provided preferably moving synchronously and in tandem and in a novel manner in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the process and apparatus of this invention, which is described hereinafter particularly with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The apparatus in accordance with a preferred operative configuration and embodiment includes a plurality of pusher bars disposed at the outlets of the supply lines or chutes and so constructed and arranged as to move in a predetermined manner simultaneously in the operation of the apparatus to separate the incoming stream of articles into batches, arrays or batches and to push the above mentioned batches, arrays or batches of articles in a predetermined manner towards a hatch provided in a platform adjacent to the supply line/chute, each of said hatch presented with a operatively vertically disposed striker plate, and a transverse moving receiving line positioned below each of said hatches to receive the batches, arrays or batches of articles falling by gravity on to the receiving line through the said hatches a plurality of support elements disposed as a continuation of the supply lines at a lower level than said outlets and so constructed simultaneously receive the batches of articles.
The pusher bars move simultaneously alternately between a slow array separating speed to an accelerated pushing speed and positioned, immediately beneath the associated support elements above said supply line chute, and pushing an array, batch or batch of articles, typically biscuits to a lowered position beneath the supply line to a receiving line and arranged, in the lowered position, to receive the batches of articles released through a hatch in a side supported tray adjacent to the chute of the supply line after abutting a striker plate presented proud of the hatch and falling by gravity in a relatively undisturbed arrayed configuration from the hatch onto the receiving line having support elements so as to be released by them in their turn into the receiving line which intersects the direction of traverse of the supply line chutes but at an operatively lower level, the receiving line being arranged to be in continuous motion at controlled speed during the movement of said pusher bars and, between the release onto the receiving line of one set of batches of articles and the release of a subsequent set, being arranged to advance by as many steps as there are supply lines, in a direction transverse to the supply lines.
The invention provides apparatus for feeding batches of laminar articles, such as biscuits from a plurality of chutes spaced equally from one another alongside a continuously moving in feed conveyor leading to a wrapping machine and including a series of pusher bars spaced at a different pitch from the chutes and each serving to advance to the wrapping machine at least one batch of laminar articles, such as biscuits, the apparatus including a receiving line having compartmentalized biscuit carriers movable from a receiving position in which it receives batches of biscuits from all of the chutes to a discharge position in which it transfer biscuits to a wrapping or boxing machine holds the batches below the conveyor with the batches aligned transversely to the conveyor, means for charging the receiving line simultaneously with batches from all the chutes, means for effecting simultaneous dropping of the batches from the supply line to the receiving line, and means for thereafter moving the receiving line to the receiving position for recharging it with further batches and means for displacing a plurality of pusher bars in reciprocatory motion and means for returning the pusher bars between an array separating position to a discharge position to enable the further batches to be dropped for advance by the pusher bars following those which advanced the previous batch of batches.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention control means are provided for control of the simultaneous dropping of the biscuits operated by the pusher bars to release batches of biscuits in the carrier of the receiving line.
Certain embodiments of the invention will now be described in greater detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.